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Saturday, March 7, 2015

The Just Label It organization is actively seeking to block GMO
labeling legislation because its key board members and operatives have
been corrupted by the very same mega food corporations that oppose GMO
labeling, high-level industry sources told Natural News.

This
Natural News investigation has obtained on-the-record quotes from no
less than five credible sources in the industry, all of whom accuse Gary
Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm and Scott Faber of Just Label It of betraying the GMO labeling movement and secretly pushing a covert agenda to sabotage state-level labeling efforts.

All
five sources demanded anonymity, citing their fear that punitive action
would be taken against them within the industry if their names were
attached to this story. "When this comes out it will start a Civil War
in the labeling movement," one source told Natural News. "There are
those of us who believe that GMO labeling will never be achieved, at any
level, as long as Gary Hirshberg and Scott Faber are siphoning money
away from committed labeling campaigns and sabotaging real GMO labeling
at the state level."

At the heart of the accusations against Gary Hirshberg and Just Label It is the apparent conflict of interest stemming from the fact that Stonyfield Farm is 85% owned by Danone, a $29 billion company that provided funding to defeat GMO labeling efforts at the state level.

At the outset, it seems extraordinary that a chairperson of the Just Label It
organization could be someone with such strong financial ties to a
powerful corporate opponent of GMO labeling. "The real problem with
Hirshberg is his longtime partner in Stonyfield is Danone," a confirmed
source told Natural News. "[Danone] had $29.3 Billion in sales in 2013,
is a toxic pesticide / yogurt and junk food international conglomerate,
with an agenda in the U.S. to block GMO labeling."

Other sources told Natural News that Gary Hirshberg had deliberately hijacked the Just Label It
campaign. "Gary Hirshberg is attempting to turn a grassroots civil
rights movement into a corporate controlled, special interest orgy [in
cooperation] with other corporate organic bosses that are controlled
mouthpieces of multinational junk food companies."

"In an effort
to protect his massive corporate fortune, Hirshberg set up his own GMO
non-profit Just Label It, only allowing corporate organic and other
sellouts to be on the board," says an Organic Spies document acquired by
Natural News (download link below).

"Hirshberg was hoping to look like a hero to the media and confuse
consumers that Just Label It was the real deal. Unfortunately, after
three years of watching this corporate weasel spin his twisted web, the
Organic Spies has discovered that Just Label It is simply another
corporate controlled front group that has never come close to succeeding
in Washington DC or anywhere else, except pocketing large donations
from organic companies and other high level donors, while real
grassroots efforts starve for cash. Instead of actually joining the real
campaigns at the state level, Hirshberg has feigned involvement to the
press and through corporate PR efforts, while a series of ballot
initiatives have narrowly lost after being massively outspent, and he's
made off with millions of dollars in donations that could have made the
difference in California, Washington, Oregon and Colorado."

"What
setting up a corporate front group does is ensure that Hirshberg has a
seat at the table in negotiating any federal GMO labeling bill, which is
essential to Danone and his corporate organic friends who want to water
down any bill to protect their profits," reads the Organic Spies
allegations document.

Natural News welcomes a response from Gary
Hirshberg and Stonyfield, and we will be happy to publish that response
if it is offered. We believe that Hirshberg, Faber and Just Label It should be afforded the opportunity to respond to these allegations.

Scott Faber, former GMA executive who supports GMOs

As part of this investigation, I spoke to Scott Faber who flatly denied the allegations leveled above, saying that Just Label It
was fighting hard for GMO labeling at the federal level. He stated that
the allegations were "utterly unfounded" and were being fronted by
people who were attempting to create confusion and chaos in the GMO
labeling movement.

But Faber himself is on the record saying that
he believes genetically engineered foods are not just safe, but even
"promising." As he testified before Congress in this video, when Faber was with the Environmental Working Group, he stated:

We
do not oppose genetic engineering, genetically modified food
ingredients. We think there are actually many promising applications of
genetically modified food ingredients. ...This isn't a question about
the technology, this is a question of whether or not to require
labeling.

"Why would Scott Faber the Executive Director of
Just label It repeat Monsanto's discredited claim that there is no
scientific evidence that GMOs are hazardous?" a source asked me during
an interview. "There is mounting scientific evidence that GMOs and the
toxic chemicals that accompany them pose a major threat to human health
and the environment."

Indeed, that very theme was driven home
just yesterday when Jane Goodall, one of the most celebrated scientists
in world history, went public with her warning
that GMOs are the result of "...a huge conspiracy by the big companies
who do genetic modification to keep the public from knowing the truth,
to subvert the course of justice."

Goodall warns that "...the
general public and government decision makers have been hoodwinked by
the clever and methodical twisting of the facts and the propagation of
many myths. ...[A] number of respected scientific institutions, as well
as many eminent scientists, were complicit in this relentless spreading
of disinformation."

"Jane Goodall nailed it when she talked about
how the evil biotech corporations have infiltrated respected
organizations to spread disinformation," another source told Natural
News yesterday, after the news broke. "Just Label It is a propaganda
conspiracy [led by a] corporate backstabber who takes his marching
orders from corporations that strongly oppose GMO labeling."

A conspiracy to divert funds away from GMO labeling?

Allegations
against Gary Hirshberg go beyond mere conflicts of interest. In
investigating this story and speaking to high-level sources within the
industry, Natural News was also told that Hirshberg essentially
committed fundraising fraud and intentionally diverted funds away from
the Prop. 37 California labeling vote.

"In the critical weeks
before the Prop. 37 vote in California, Gary Hirshberg intentionally
diverted resources from the campaign by holding fundraisers in
California, including LA, where he misled celebrities to believe they
were raising awareness and donating to Prop. 37," a source told Natural
News. "Instead, Hirshberg raised money and media attention for his own
organization, Just Label It, which focuses solely on a national labeling
standard."

"I disagree with Gary Hirshberg chairman of
Stonyfield Farm and leader of Just Label It, for putting all his eggs in
the federal basket," wrote attorney Michele Simon, author of Appetite for Profit.
"While Hirshberg and his company endorsed 37, he donated relatively
little to the campaign and was even quoted in the New York Times saying
he doesn't think this problem can be solved state by state. Obviously
not, but how does Hirshberg ever expect to get anywhere at the federal
level unless and until we can gain traction locally? This is exactly how
most policy change is made, especially when we face massive industry
opposition. Some are already predicting that the California loss will
set back the effort nationally."

"Hirshberg has demonstrated
himself as a skilled corporate operator who has numerous political and
business conflicts of interest that should disqualify him from being any
type of leader in the GMO labeling movement," reads the Organic Spies
allegations report (see below).

During
every state GMO ballot measure, the GMA has viciously fought to block
labeling laws, and it has been largely successful in doing so. To
realize that Scott Faber held a high position in this organization for
five years and is now the Executive Director of Just Label It
raises a long list of red flags. This is even more interesting when
considering the financial web between Danone and Gary Hirshberg's
company Stonyfield Farm.

"Hirshberg and his corporate organic
cronies have handed America's GMO labeling movement over to a corrupt
hired gun with no loyalty to organics, family farmers or the food
movement," says the Organic Spies allegations document. "Instead, Faber
has a 5-year track record of selling America's farmer and consumers out
in exchange for a large salary. It's no wonder Just Label It's DC
strategy is in shambles. Failure by design is what Just Label It sounds
like, while sabotaging real grassroots efforts that have a chance to
succeed."

Infiltration and corruption: the Monsanto way

The
biotech industry's playbook is founded on the infiltration and
corruption of every institutional imaginable: science journals,
universities, media networks, government regulators and grocery
retailers.

Biotech's infiltration
and corruption of the mainstream media is also documented in the book.
"[J]ournalists who tried to bring unsettling facts to light had their
stories altered or totally quashed by higher level executives," writes
Jane Goodall.

Given biotech's successful infiltration of the
media, the U.S. government, science journals and universities, it's no
leap at all to realize that infiltration of the GMO labeling movement is
far more than merely likely: it seems inevitable.

Perhaps that's why so many voices in the industry are now saying it has already happened, and that Gary Hirshberg and Scott Faber are essentially "Monsanto minions" who have turned Just Label It into a biotech front group intended to block GMO labeling, not achieve it.

AGree a front group with ties to Monsanto, Bill & Melinda Gates?

As
the Organic Spies writes, "[A]nother new front group that Hirshberg
serves on as a 'co-chair', named AGree, is a massive threat to the
organic movement."

"Hirshberg's connections to Michael Taylor and
Tom Vilsack are almost tame compared to his involvement with another
corporate agribusiness front group called AGree. AGree launched in the
spring of 2011 and is controlled by former Monsanto and Solutia board
member, William Ruckelshaus and Gordon Conway, who promoted GMOs for
more than a decade at the Rockefeller foundation. As one of the
"co-chairs" of the new organization, Hirshberg is collaborating with a
rogues gallery of former top USDA, USAID officials that have a history
of promoting GMOs and industrial agriculture, but now want to create a
policy based decision 'framework' making process to 'address' challenges
in agriculture for the future. Not surprising, AGree is fully funded by
the Billionaire pro GMO, pro industrial farming monoculture globalist
foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
Rockefeller Foundation and The Walton Family Foundation, led by the
heirs of the WalMart fortune."

The AGree website
features cooperation with corporate partner National Geographic, which
recently ran a brazenly dishonest hit piece entitled "THE WAR ON
SCIENCE" which characterized anyone who disagreed with Monsanto's
science fraud as being equivalent to those who "think the moon landing
was faked." (This derogatory tactic of declaring anyone who opposes
genetically engineered seeds as being "anti-science" is borrowed
straight out of Monsanto's play book.)

According to the AGree website, its co-chairs include people who have deep ties to the biotech and processed food industries:

AGree
seeks to drive positive change in the food and agriculture system by
connecting and challenging leaders from diverse communities to catalyze
action and elevate food and agriculture as a national priority...
Through collaboration and frank discussion, AGree has established a
venue whereby a broad coalition of interests have built trust, found
common ground, and developed shared strategies for achieving
transformative change.

"AGree is incubated within the
Meridian Institute, which is led by two men deeply connected to the
biotech industry, each having used their elite ties to promote
Monsanto's chemical GMO agenda around the world. Meridian Board Members:
William Ruckelshaus, Gordon Conway, William Ruckelshaus, who serves as
Chairman for the Meridian Institute, previously served as the first
administrator of the EPA under Richard Nixon, where he banned DDT.
Ruckelshaus later went on to serve as acting director of the FBI and
named deputy attorney general and then once again at the EPA. According to SourceWatch,
Ruckelshaus set up shop and started working with chemical corporations,
to undermine basic safety regulations related to Superfund sites,
including Monsanto, DuPont and Union Carbide. Eventually, Ruckelshaus
served on the boards of Monsanto, and Monsanto spin-offs Solutia and
Pharmacia."

The Organic Spies
is a secretive group of investigators and activists who are best known
for exposing Whole Foods' embarrassing denial that their stores sold
products containing genetically engineered ingredients.

It was
Organic Spies, in fact, that ultimately forced Whole Foods to announce
it would achieve 100% GMO labeling compliance on all the products it
sells by the year 2018.

Natural News has acquired a document from Organic Spies which details a long list of allegations about Just Label It.
The document is based on what the group calls "...a 3-year, behind the
scenes investigation" and it details the apparent financial conflicts of
interest and philosophical betrayals of Hirshberg and Faber.

•
"Hirshberg not only declined to join Prop 37, but he undermined the
campaign to potential donors for nine months, then sabotaged donations
when the campaign really needed them by holding fundraising for Just
Label It in Hollywood and San Francisco in the critical month of
September 2012."

• "In 2011, Hirshberg, [whose] organic yogurt company is
85% owned by pesticide yogurt barons at Dannon, realized that the best
way to greenwash positive PR for Stonyfield Farms and control the public
debate over GMO labeling would be to create a front group, Just Label
It, to control and sabotage any real grassroots GMO labeling movement
that might demand more real and honest messaging from those on the
frontlines."

• "...Hirshberg and his allies at Whole Foods
...tried to cut a deal over GMO alfalfa, to allow organic foods to
become contaminated with GMOs, but the grassroots protected organic
integrity and blocked the deal."

• "Hirshberg has flaunted his
close personal friendship with current US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom
Vilsack, former Iowa governor and Biotech Governor of the Year. Even
better, in 2007, during Tom Vilsack's failed run for President,
Hirshberg and Whole Foods' co-CEO Walter Robb personally vetted Vilsack
and tried to raise money for him from fellow organic companies CEOs."

•
"Hirshberg's Just Label It has hired a handful of expensive, overpriced
corporate lobbyists and consultants including the corporate Democrat
connected PR firm Fenton Communications, which not only lists the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation as a client but also corporate food
giants General Mills Foundation and Unilever, among many others."

•
"The overlapping nature of Hirshberg's handpicked board at Just Label
It and the Organic Trade Association is an intentional move to
consolidate power at the top of the organic industry, coordinate behind
the scenes efforts and keep others in the dark about their true goals of
undermining organic integrity and state GMO labeling efforts."

•
"Right now the Organic Trade Association is working behind the scenes
to try to get organic companies to remove the Non-GMO Project seal
because they believe it is undermining Organic's value in the
marketplace since sales of Non-GMO Project verified food products have
skyrocketed in the past two year since Prop 37. Why is the Organic Trade
Association trashing the Non-GMO Project label? Because sales of
Non-GMO project verified foods are increasing faster than sales of
organic food at places like Whole Foods and co-ops across the country,
thanks in large part to the ballot initiative fights being led by
grassroots activists and a handful of small organic companies."

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